Cooperative control and navigation in the scope of the EC CADDY project

Abstract

Cognitive Autonomous Diving Buddy (CADDY) is an FP7 project initiated in February 2014. The key objectives of the project are to develop, implement, and demonstrate in the course of missions at sea the efficacy of a number of innovative systems to assist human divers during the execution of demanding scientific and commercial activities in hazardous underwater environments. At the core of CADDY is the development of an underwater robot that plays the role of a buddy diver and a surface robot to improve guidance, monitoring, assistance, and safety of the diver's mission. The present paper gives a brief summary of the work done during the first year of the project towards the development and testing of the systems required for coordinated surface / underwater vehicle operations. We consider the cases where the leader is either the surface or the underwater vehicle. The architecture adopted for multiple vehicle coordination is described. Results of tests with the MEDUSA class of autonomous marine vehicles show the efficacy of the systems developed for navigation and coordinated motion control.